Joint Media Release

30 December 2002

Council for Australian-Arab Relations

Joint media release from the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister
for Trade Mark Vaile

The Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer and the Minister for Trade
Mark Vaile today announced that the Government would establish a Council
for Australian-Arab Relations (CAAR) to strengthen ties and understanding
between Australia and Arab countries.

Council members will be drawn from business, Government and the academic
community and hold their first meeting in early 2003.Â

The Council will focus primarily on commercial and people-to-people links.Â It
will also work to strengthen academic and educational ties and to broaden
awareness of each other's history, politics, culture, music and science and
technology.

The decision to establish the Council follows key recommendations by the
Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade which last
year published a review of Australia's relations with the Middle East region.

The Ministers said the Council's establishment was now even more appropriate
given the significant developments over the past year.

Mr Downer said Australians had a range of significant interests in the Middle
East and North Africa.Â He said the new Council would help build bridges
between Australia and Arab countries and confirm that Australia had great
respect and admiration for Islam, highly valued its own Muslim communities
and looked forward to closer links with Arab countries.Â Â

Mr Vaile said the Council would build on the recent spectacular growth in
Australia's trade with the Middle East.Â Total merchandise exports grew by
almost 40 per cent in 2001.Â This followed average annual growth in our exports
to the Middle East of 12.7 per cent between 1996 and 1999.